


012

by birdcages7



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: And still technically alive, Angst, Billy is technically dead, Government Experimentation, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdcages7/pseuds/birdcages7
Summary: It was August, 1986, when Billy was released---Inspired completely by a tumblr prompt. It ended up nothing like the prompt and became it's own thing, about how Billy would feel having been released after a year at the hands of the government.
Kudos: 16





	012

It was August, 1986, when Billy was released. He didn’t have much. A bag of second hand clothes that had been donated to somewhere at some point, nothing of which had ever fit right or would have been anything he’d chosen to wear voluntarily. The keys to a basement apartment underneath a general store, two small windows up high near the ceiling the only natural light source. Basic furniture. Only enough to survive, nothing homely. A tracking bracelet around his ankle. A thick black box that weighed more than it looked, hidden by baggy jeans that were kept up by a belt he had to stab extra holes into.

It might have fit him properly last year. But that was last year.

He kept the letter they gave him pinned to the small refrigerator next to the sink. This apartment is owned by the US Government. You are not to leave Hawkins until we say you can under any circumstance. You are not to take off the tracking bracelet for any reason. You are to report in to the number below once every two weeks, same time and day. Failure to do these tasks will see you readmitted.

Neil’s abuse was fun in comparison to that possibility.

It had been a long year. The longest of Billy’s short life. A year of surgeries, rehabilitation, endless tests. Having his hair shaved off. Losing his muscle mass. Losing his tan. Being kept in rooms with no windows. Alone for weeks. Being stitched back together like a jigsaw puzzle made of skin. A sock with a hole in it. Being treated like an animal, an experiment. Being poked and prodded by miles of needles. Blood and plasma. Bone marrow. Lumbar punctures. Spinal fluid. Staring into bright lights for hours until he went temporarily blind. Patch worked with pads to listen to his brain. His heart. His lungs. His stomach. Every different face wearing the same masks, the same gowns, the same gloves. Never feeling anything real apart from pain.

Sometimes he still felt like a prisoner in his own body. What was left of it. What he didn’t recognise was his anymore. That  _ thing _ still in his arm. In his head. Alone at night he would still hear it whisper. But it was different now. It had no power to control him. So Billy tried to ignore it. Just keep going somehow, this would get better eventually. If he did well in this test he’d be allowed a coke. If he did well in another he could sit next to a window. He could, and did, work his way out of the Building, away from being a lab rat directly.

He’d come out with **012** tattooed on his arm, just under the crook of his elbow. They must have done it when he was passed out at one point. Everything else about him had changed, it made sense there would be something new added as well in amongst the web of white scars that spanned his entire body. Thick like elm roots on his chest, the epicenter. Thin and fine on his arms and legs and the backs of his hands, a few up the back of his neck. He kept everything hidden under thick clothes. A donated Slazenger jacket became his best friend. Grey and waterproof. Sleeves that fell to his fingers. Old jeans that someone probably died in. Dirty white sneakers. Everything the opposite of who he was before. It felt right somehow. He wasn’t that person anymore. He’d never be that person again.

A government appointed  _ talking person _ had advised Billy to take everything day by day. The world was very different from what was inside the Building and its grounds. The one tree outside to look at to guess what season it was. Doing too much at once would upset things. Getting drunk wasn’t an option. Getting high wasn’t an option. Working out wasn’t an option. Getting a job wasn’t an option. Walking was fine though, practically encouraged. Enough time had passed, there was a very low chance of being recognised. Legally he was dead. He should probably think of a new name for himself. The government would help with paperwork when he was deemed ready for phase three. It would pay for him to live,  _ exist _ , in phase two.

Billy never saw her face. But she had a calm voice throughout. Hidden behind the two way mirror and through the phone that had no numbers to dial. No outside line. He liked to imagine she had green eyes. The closest thing he had to a friend, even though he never said more than yes or no in return.

It took two weeks before Billy went further than the store upstairs. Three weeks before he went more than two blocks. It was odd to feel a breeze again. Odd to feel a cold that didn’t come from within. Odd to feel hot from the sun. Odd to hear multiple voices and vehicles coming from everywhere. Odd to hear children. Odd to hear joy and laughter. 

Odd not to hear beeping white boxes, the crinkle of sanitised plastic casings being unwrapped and opened. Hollow footsteps on a tiled floor. Count back from ten. Nine. Eight. 

Hawkins didn’t look any different. It had the same amount of stop lights, stop signs. The same amount of parking spaces outside the diner and town hall. The same amount of benches in the park. The same playground equipment. The same graffiti under the slide. The same names scratched into the hard orange plastic, autographs of teenagers hiding out and getting high with their friends after dark. Billy thumbed over his own name. The night he and Harrington buried the hatchet over a joint and a half bottle of whiskey. Both hiding from home and wanting to just feel young and stupid again. Both tired of fighting.

That Billy had no idea what tiredness was.

Billy spent every day just walking. Retracing his steps over the whole town. Streets he used to drive down with abandon, screaming along to music or just screaming for the hell of it. Now he was ignoring how his lungs burnt when every step too far. Walking through pretty little neighbourhoods with white picket fences, perfect front yards. He felt like a ghost. No one looked at him twice. He really had died. There wasn’t a grave for him at the church. He didn’t expect there to be one, that required his family caring about him. They didn’t care before. Why would they care now he was the reason the fancy new mall ‘burnt down’?

The house was the same. At least from the outside on the other side of the street. 4819 Cherry Lane. The same broken steps. The same mailbox. The same windowed front porch. The same dead grass. The same dead trees. He could still be there but he couldn’t. Schrödinger’s Hargrove. A part of him wanted to go and knock on the door. Look through the windows. See what happened to his room. If any part of him and who he was still existed in those walls. The government wouldn’t like that though. He was dead. It was hard to accept it was better to stay dead. The box around his ankle felt heavier.

The centre of town was busier than the suburbs. Billy worked his way there last. Built up a tolerance for noise and engines and people over a few months. Step by step. Day by day. Getting used to being dead. Watched the stripmall from the other side of the parking lot. The auto repair shop he visited a lot for parts for his fallen camaro. God knows what they did with her. The arcade where he dropped Max off more than once. He tried not to think about her. About what could happen now he was gone. The broken great wall. He sat at the bus stop for a break. His lungs felt like they were about to tear open again. His chest was heavy and tight. Five minutes. Then he’d keep going. Keep carrying on. 

Keep fighting. 

A sharp scream dragged his head up from his sneaker laces. Two kids piled out of a BMW. A brown one that looked expensive. A shock of red hair that had been long but was now just short to shoulder length in a dramatic line. Jean shorts and a yellow t-shirt. A denim jacket.  _ Billy’s _ denim jacket. The sleeves had been cut off. Someone had painted a skull smoking on the back panel. Probably the wearer herself. It wasn’t unlike Billy’s first tattoo. The one he used to have on his arm. The one they cut through and scars took over from both sides took over and removed.

Max. She’d screamed. But she didn’t look scared or worried or even sad. She was smiling from ear to ear. Sunglasses pushed into her hair. She looked taller. She’d screamed at a boy in a baseball hat. Billy vaguely recognised him from long ago, somewhere in the back of what was left of his old mind. He winced and made a show of fixing his ear with a finger. Probably complaining that Max was too loud. Billy had told her that before. When things were different. When he was different. When he was younger but old.

They both went to walk through the doors when the driver got out of the car. Harrington. Of course it was him. He looked exactly the same. Big mane of brunette hair effortlessly styled. Stupid mom jeans. He tossed forgotten backpacks at both of them. Sounded kind as he said he’d pick them both up in two hours so don’t be fucking around in there. He’d already been hat kid’s surrogate brother by all accounts, it looked like he just picked Max up too. Another lost duckling to add to his gaggle.

Watching them live out their lives made Billy feel even more in the ground. A part of him wanted to walk over, say hi, I’m not actually dead. But he knew that was a bad idea. The whole town had moved on by way of nothing changing. The mall had been brushed over. It was a building site now. All the people that Billy  _ took _ , they had been forgotten too. Someone had planted a heather bush in the town square. She hadn’t been forgotten. But that was it. People just carried on. As if nothing ever happened. As if those people had never existed. As if Billy had never existed. Max clearly remembered him if her attire was anything to go by, but did anyone else? He didn’t expect to be remembered at all. But then he also wasn’t dead yet. But he was a memory now. Nothing more. Even though he was sat right there. The cold plastic of the bus stop bench sinking through his denim covered thighs.

Max smiled at Harrington. Really smiled. Said thanks and squeezed his arm before the two kids went inside, into all the noise and lights that even the thought of following made Billy panic. Not as much as fireworks did. Harrington yelled after them to not lose all their money and sunk back into his car. Watching it all was like watching tv. Billy couldn’t interact with any of it. His body wouldn’t let him. His mind wouldn’t let him. Stuck frozen on the bench. Stuck frozen in the past while the world moved on. Left him alone with his scars and memories and regrets and apologies to people who would never hear them.

He’d apologised to Max so many times in his head it wasn’t funny anymore. He had so many regrets they consumed him. Being alone for so long at the hands of the government, he longed to be out. To be given a second chance. He regretted not being nicer to Harrington. He was a good guy. Too good for this town. He regretted just not being an asshole to his sister. Wanted a chance to not treat her like some second class citizen. Their situation wasn’t her fault. He’d just been so blinded by rage and hate about things he couldn’t change he took it out on her. She didn’t deserve that.

It had just taken dying to truly realise it.

She needed someone to make sure she was okay, now stuck alone at Cherry Lane with no one to stop angry fists and hateful words. She had Harrington.

Harrington was better than Billy.

He watched the BMW drive away, the kids long inside. The scene resetting itself. Billy sighed shakily and got to his feet, rubbing over his chest where his heart ached behind inches of scar tissue inside and out. Starting to walk back to his basement.

It was better he was dead. Unmourned and forgotten. It's what he deserved.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr page.](https://bird-in-a-cage.tumblr.com/)


End file.
